


The Ballad of Curt and Maxwell

by feraldogstiel



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Character Death, Curt's POV, Drama, Illustrations, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Major Original Character(s), Medical Experimentation, Oscar Wilde - Freeform, Violence, actual demon Maxwell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2005-12-05
Updated: 2005-12-05
Packaged: 2017-12-25 03:15:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feraldogstiel/pseuds/feraldogstiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Curt loses Brian, but things aren't over yet. Two strange parting gifts and a request lead Wild to discover the true secret of Maxwell Demon...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He was so distracted. I'd like to think it was because of our fight, but I found out it was so much more fucked up than that. Whatever came between us was like the sprinkles on the icing on the cake. And that was one fuckin' huge cake, if you wanna make it like that. Everything with Brian was always over the top, twice as big and grand as it had to be.

He was staring at the mirror when I came in. This glare that was hard and blank at the same time, sitting there radiating anger and perfection.

"Are you ready to go?"

He turned to glower at me, eyes narrowed, undoubtedly at the harshness in my voice. I just crossed my arms and glared back.

"Well?"

The radio had been playing, some woman going on about these stupid assassination rumors and Brian only snapped at his assistant, "Turn it off. And leave."

The makeup artist, for fear of Brian's wrath, quickly did as she was commanded and scurried out, closing the door behind her. Locking me in with him.

"Curt."

He said to me, getting up, opening the case that contained his cocaine.

"Maxwell."

"No."

He started to move closer to me, setting down the coke without having taken any, and picked something up from the table as he came. Two packages, one wrapped in heavy gold paper, the other, slightly smaller, in black and silver.

I sneered at him.

"Brian, you're not making this go away by buying me a bunch of shit. Not this time."

But he still pressed them into my hands.

"No, Curt… take it. For after. When it's all done with."

I can't believe I didn't notice something wrong then, the way he'd said that. Maybe I hadn't wanted to. I hadn't wanted to stop being pissed off at him.

I took the presents, but I didn't open them.

"Fine."

"Thank you," he said, running a thumb along my jaw. I snapped back, but he kissed me anyway, gently. "I'll miss you… and don't hurt him."

And then he just walked off towards the stage, with me yelling after him.

"Brian, you fucking coked-out whore! I'm not going anywhere, you stupid bitch! I can't! Fuck you! Fuck you and Jerry! You've fuckin' lost it!"

He never looked back.

-+-

A minute later, I heard the shot.

Two hours later, they finally let me into the hospital room.

Brian was dead.

-+-

The tour was called off. As if I needed to say that. I wish it hadn't been.That meant I had to return to the flat we had once shared. I had to return to those empty halls, empty rooms, empty bed, empty sheets. There was still his touch, his color choices, the way he ordered and arranged things. Traces of Brian everywhere, but the man I loved nowhere.

I spent hours, days searching for him, going round and round the flat. Not like he was anywhere, or that I was expecting to find him. That's for crazy people. I don't know what I was trying to do, only that for a while, it made me feel better.

After that, it made me feel like shit, and I left. I went to a hotel, leaving all my stuff behind in that apartment. I couldn't bear to move anything. It had been Brian who had set everything up there. Maybe it was the heroin I'd taken up again, but to change anything he had done just felt like I was cosmically screwing with his perception of me. So the only thing I took with me was what Brian had specifically put into my hand- those two gifts, still in that flashy wrapping he had no doubt done himself, even with all those people at his beck and call. It wouldn't have been the perfect way he wanted if he hadn't done it himself. Nothing ever was.

I sat there on the hotel couch, staring at those two boxes on the little mass-produced coffee table. The last things Brian had ever given me, and I hadn't had the guts to open them. I was still afraid to, then. What does a man on the brink of suicide give his lover as parting gifts?

But he'd said to open them. After. So with a rising terror, I picked up the bigger one and tore off the gold paper. Inside was a black velvet jewelry box, which only left me wondering more about his reasoning. So I didn't open it. I set that aside, and picked up the black and silver package and peeled off the paper, more careful this time.

Inside was a copy of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. Brian's copy, from the way the pages were folded and certain lines were marked as I leafed through it. How many times had he integrated Wilde's words into his own? How pleased had he been when I'd used them, once? The book was brought to every hotel and vacation house we'd been to. If it got lost, Brian had thrown a fit, and would do so until THIS copy was found. There were no substitutes.

I couldn't take this from him. It wouldn't have been right, even though he did give it to me. Keeping something like that would make you sick.


	2. Chapter 2

His funeral was the next day. Why they waited so damn long, I'm not sure. Isn't it disrespectful or something to leave the dead unburied? Anyway, I didn't want to think of him when he wasn't buried. Wasn't alive. I was still trying to wash the memory of the scene in the hospital from my mind. I don't think I'll ever go back to a hospital… factories of death and pain, that's all they are.

They had wanted me to do the eulogy. I had refused. Truth was, if I had gotten up there… the people would have heard nothing but the sobs of a broken man. That's what I was, without Brian. That's all I could do throughout the entire thing, was just bawl like a sissy girl. He was so close to me, and so horribly far away.

It was a closed casket funeral. I think that's what really got to me; I couldn't understand why. He was so beautiful, and he tried so hard to be beautiful. It was his life. How could they simply close the lid on someone so stunning, even in death? How could they shut him away from the sun when all he'd ever sought was the spotlight? It broke my heart to see him lowered into the ground. I couldn't throw any dirt on him. I wouldn't help to lock him there, in the dark.

I waited for everyone to leave. Waited forever, as people started to drift off to their after parties or whatever the hell is supposed to happen after a funeral. I'd never stuck around long enough to find out. But for Brian, I waited until it was only me, Mandy, and the two men with shovels. They finished their job quickly and neatly and just left; it didn't matter to them who had died.

Then came the waiting contest between me and Mandy. We went on for hours, standing and staring, not speaking, until we were stiff and cold and it had begun to drizzle rain. Bitterly trying to prove who was more eaten away by grief.

In the end, it was me. Mandy turned away from her former husband's grave, raising a hand to her eyes a moment even though I wasn't sure there had really been tears there at that point, then saying to me,

"I'm sorry, Curt."

"Yeah… me too…"

Then I was alone with him, and I sat down beside the fresh dirt, ran my hand against the black marble headstone. Black and silver. Black and silver like the paper on the book. I pulled it out of my jacket pocket, staring a while at the painting pictured on the cover, flipping the pages a bit to see Brian's meticulous handwriting in the margins, the areas where he'd taken a highlighter to certain quotes he enjoyed. No, he couldn't be without this. I set it down by the flowers other mourners had left.

There had been something there, though, that I'd missed. A note stuck between the pages. I hadn't noticed it because of how perfectly sized it had been; perfectly cut to the book's dimensions. My rifling through the pages, though, had turned it loose, and it stuck out, looking just like one of the other pages. Afraid I'd fucked up one of Brian's most prized possessions, I picked up the book again, turned to that page, hoping there was some way to keep it from falling out.

It did come out, though, into my hand, as it had been meant to. Brian had intended for me to find it, no matter how well hidden. Maybe he thought I would have read the book after he died. He'd asked me to so many times. He told me it would help me understand. He was right in one way.

As soon as I figured out the page that had fallen was in Brian's handwriting, I quickly dropped the book, forgot about it. Brian's thoughts were more important. I read on, stumbling sometimes over his ornate lettering, which was of course exquisite but impractical.

-+-

_Curt,_

_By the time you find this, I am sure I will no longer be with you. I do plan on taking my life, darling, but don't fret; it's not because of you. I could never pin you with such a horrendous crime, so much guilt. No, I'm afraid it's all my own affair, really. I should never have let things go this far. I can't bear the shame of what I've done here, made a mockery of life, created something quite disastrous. It must end, Curt; therefore I must go. I will no longer allow Maxwell's will to be done through me._

_I am praying you will be able to better handle it. That said, I am afraid I must ask a terrible favor of you. I trust you will do it, out of respect for the dead, if nothing else, and I know you will be horribly offended that I've kept this from you. But it's very important you do not waste much time in opening the attic room of our flat._

_I love you, darling Curt. I'm sorry to have said those things to you in the studio. And I'm so sorry it had to come to this._

_Love,_

_Brian_

_P.S. - chapter XI, page 131_

-+-

I read the words. Read them again. Over and over until I'd practically memorized the contents of the note, and still I didn't understand what Brian asked of me. Simply to open the door to our attic? What could he be hiding up there? I'd never gone there, and I'm not sure he had either. After all, there was nothing exciting about an attic when you live in an expensively furnished flat. You didn't need one. I hoped the answer was in the book. At least he'd left some other reference, not that it helped much at that point.

Because when I opened the book, there was only half of one line highlighted on the page he'd listed:

"The garnet cast out demons…"


	3. Chapter 3

The ride home was silent. Everything seemed silent then with Brian gone. I nearly gave up music entirely that first year after his suicide. Music had been Brian's thing. Mine too at first, but once Brian had touched something, caressed it with his excellence, it was his.

I had the note in hand all the way over; the book I had left at his grave. It was his after all. The quote was short; I could remember it without the book. Not that I knew what it was supposed to mean at that point. Garnet cast out demons? Brian was dead, Maxwell with him. I wished I was.

-+-

After checking out of the hotel, I reluctantly returned to the flat. There was a shitload of mail in the entryway, but I just kinda shoved it aside with my foot and went on. I had more important things to do than check out our outrageous bills for the month. Like figure out what the hell Brian was going on about the attic for in his note.

I went down the hallway to the back of the flat. Or the side. Whatever. You can imagine how the thing is laid out yourself; it doesn't really matter all that much. There were two doors, though. One at the bottom of the stairs to the attic and one at the top. The first one was unlocked, then I got all the way upstairs and found the second one wouldn't budge. Damn Brian. He had to make things difficult, didn't he? And I had no idea where that damn key would have been. I assumed they had come with the apartment, so who the hell knew where they'd been the last few months. I certainly didn't keep track of them.

Then again… the lock looked new. A lot newer than the other ones around the flat. They were antique, Brian had said. A lot of shit around this place was. Some of it I was afraid to even touch or use or sit on or whatever. But I still didn't have the key, new or not. So I headed back downstairs.

I must have torn that place apart looking for that damn thing. You'd think, with Brian being so neat, it would have been on the key rack, but I tried every damn one of them in the lock and none worked. So I started wrecking the place looking for where it might be hidden. I didn't have a system; I don't like order. Besides, Brian hadn't been following the rules of order this time around.

-+-

It got to be around midnight before I quit. I was getting hungry, not to mention fuckin' frustrated. So I called down to the front desk to get some food. It was a lot easier to send requests like that through the company that owned the flats. Or the people who worked for them, anyway.

"Hello, Vista Santa flats… this is Mr. Wild?"

"Yeah, it is."

"What can we do for you, sir?"

"Can you call somewhere and get me a pizza or something, send it up?"

"I can; just tell me what kind and where from. It's a bit late, isn't it, Mr. Wild?"

"Yeah, well. I was looking for a key all damn night."

"A key, sir?"

"Yeah, to the attic. Can't find it."

"Mr. Slade left a key here a the desk a few days before he left to…"

Oh Brian. So you were the logical one after all. I cut the man at the desk off.

"In that case, forget the pizza. Just bring up the key."

"Of course."

-+-

And a few minutes later, I had the key in hand, and I was alone again. Terrified again. You can't understand how really scary it is thinking about what a dead person could have left you locked in some secret attic. I decided it was going to be better to find out quick, just get it over with. 


	4. Chapter 4

Once again, I found myself at that second attic door, but this time the key turned easily in the lock, and the door just swung open with a slight click. And I stood there staring for quite a while. What had been bare attic space when we moved in had been converted, some time without my knowing, into a very modernized, almost space-age looking, living space. Everything was either black or chrome, with the exception of electric blue accents that matched the stunning shade of the carpet. The same shade as Brian's hair had been.

From what I could see, it was sort of a studio apartment type of space, with a bedroom of sorts sectioned off with a half-wall that flowed into a living room that flowed into a tiny kitchen. The rest was walled off; I guessed for a bathroom.

"What the hell, Brian…?"

There was a slight sound of movement from the "bedroom" area. I stepped further inside to get a better look, and over the low wall caught a glimpse of electric blue hair against black silk pillowcases. My heart jumped into my chest.

"Hello?"

Coming closer, so slowly, it was like a dream. I could make out Brian's unmistakable features, his soft lips, high cheekbones, long eyelashes. I think I stopped breathing. The bed's occupant opened his eyes.

They were black. Solid, glossy black. No iris, no white, no pupil. Just cold, hard, fiery blackness.

I stepped back, shocked.

The thing in the bed curled its lips back at me, snarled, baring bright-white fangs. Brian's exact teeth, except for the canines, which were noticeably longer and sharper than any human's. Humans can't growl like that, either. A hand with long black claws at the end of slender fingers threw back the covers, still snarling indignantly at me. I was frozen in that moment, staring at my lover's flawless body, so classically and gorgeously bare, only…

Brian never had wings, torn and bony, dragon-like, that he fanned out threateningly at me as he got up from the mattress. Brian never had a row of small, sharp spines along his back, going down his spine to the place where Brian never had a long tail that thrashed about in an expression of pure irritation.

I'm not ashamed to say I turned tail and ran then. Turned and bolted out of the upstairs flat, locked the door behind me. Who the hell wouldn't?

I had Maxwell goddamned Demon living in my attic.

-+-

I spent the rest of the night, the early hours of the morning, either shaking from nightmares if I fell asleep or just plain shaking. Maxwell Demon. Upstairs. Perfectly silent, not even footsteps, but how was I to trust that?

I had to get rid of him. Had to. There were so many reasons. How he'd changed Brian. What he'd done to our relationship. How he treated me, Brian's wife, Jerry, just people in general. How he forced Brian into madness great enough to commit suicide. How I was terrified of him.

Everything made so much sense now. Poor Brian. Who could take that pressure? Who could live with something like that in the back of their mind all the time? His little quirks clicked perfectly now.

And I could make some sense out of his last words to me. "I am praying you will better be able to handle it," "The garnet cast out demons." Maxwell had to be stopped. And Brian had chosen me to do it.

It's amazing how when something clicks, it _really_ clicks. I somehow knew that Brian wouldn't just send me into this unprepared, and I went to find that black velvet jewelry box that had been in the gold wrapping. What should I find inside but a leather collar, inlaid with pieces of garnet?

The knife was my idea.

-+-

By the next night, I had worked up the courage to return to the attic. Armed with the collar and my knife, I unlocked the door silently, looking around. I couldn't see the Demon from there. I had to come further inside.

Walking quietly, knife in hand, I moved a bit further inside. I noticed the lights were quite a bit dimmer than when I came in before, and it made me anxious. Like he was expecting me. Like he was trying to throw me off.

But no, I found him in bed again, and this time I caught him asleep. God, he almost looked innocent. Almost. Except for the fact that I could see the spines running up his neck, it could have been Brian sleeping in that bed.

I remembered then I had no plan on how I was going to get the collar on him and tight without waking him up. He was bound to wake up. And then he'd kill me. I almost backed out, then. A sane person would have.

A person mad with grief and anger would unbuckle the collar, start to slip one end carefully around the sleeping Demon's neck.

It brushed his skin and he twitched. Flinched, almost. Working carefully, I got the thing to where I could buckle it before I ran into trouble. The buckle rattled slightly as it slid over the eyes laid into the collar, and those black eyes shot open.

Everything happened fast then. No more of this sweating and dreading and shaking and trying to be still and quiet and not lose my nerve. Maxwell snarled and swiped at me with a clawed hand. I stabbed the knife forward with one hand and pulled the collar down chokingly tight with the other.

The knife sank into his shoulder, but the sound I heard was him gagging from the collar. He flinched, and that moment gave me the split second I needed to fully fasten the buckle, and dart out the door again.

Scratched and bleeding, but flooded with relief and this fuckin' crazy triumph, I made it back to my level of the apartment alive.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for a terribly old illustration of Maxwell which my scanner has chewed up.

The next day was a guilt trip like no other. I spent the whole time thinking about the last thing Brian had said to me before he died.

_"I'll miss you… and don't hurt him."_

I'd gotten so carried away in getting rid of Maxwell I hadn't thought of that. Then it had struck me full-force, right after I'd come down from my high off of stabbing that bastard creature.

It tried to forget about it, but Maxwell wasn't letting me off easy. For the first time, I could hear him up there, gagging and coughing and retching and moaning in utter misery. I heard heavy thuds that were undoubtedly things being knocked over and falling to the floor. Those crashes only lasted a few minutes, but I could hear him up there for hours.

It was the weirdest thing, but I started feeling bad about what I'd done to him. It was a really shit way to die. But I couldn't bring myself to go up there again.

He carried on for three days like that. Three days before the upstairs apartment finally fell silent. Three days suffocating. Then I had to go figure out what to do with him now that he was dead.

-+-

I went upstairs to investigate the damage. There were spatters of blood all along the blue carpet, on one line from the bedroom to the bathroom. Some were old and dried on, others a bright, vibrant red, still wet. Fresh.

The bathroom door had been left open. I could see the end of Maxwell's tail curling just outside of it, feathered with long, fine hair like you'll see horses have on their feet sometimes. Electric blue, just like on his head.

I moved closer, stepping into the bathroom, and as soon as my foothad crossed the threshold,I heard this absolutely pathetic snarl from the floor. The poor bastard was still alive, can you believe that? Blood was caked on his shoulder, the knife still sunk in mostly as I had left it, and his heavy, rasping breathing had brought a pinkish, bloody foam to the corners of his mouth, but he still was clinging on to his miserable existance.

He snarled at me, warning me away, then he coughed, retched, and threw up what seemed to be mostly blood. Not onto the floor, into the toilet.

That was when I realized I wasn't just dealing with some stupid, senseless animal. 'Cause you can toilet-train cats, ferrets, dogs, rabbits or whatever you want to take a shit in a litter box. But I'll pay you a million bucks if you can show me anything with less than human intelligence that's _vomit_ -trained of its own accord.

I could have just let him die if I hadn't seen that… but after it… it was too much like killing another human. One with Brian's face, on top of that.

He seemed to have passed out after throwing up, wedged between the wall and the toilet and the edge of an enormous sunken-in bathtub. Pressed against the cool marble floor, like some kid with a fever.

Since he was out, I reached out to touch him hesitantly, on his back, just behind one of the wing-joints. He didn't stir, so I picked him up, carried him out of the bathroom and over to his bed. Carrying him was awkward, because his wings just fell limp, dragging the ground, and I was afraid I'd step on them. Plus I was shaking the whole time, because I was scared. If he woke up… all he needed to do was take those claws to my throat, and I was a fuckin' goner for sure.

I got him to bed, though. He wasn't really that heavy. Then again, being locked up here, he probably hadn't eaten anything in a while.

Next I had to get the knife out of his shoulder. I knew he was going to wake up for that; there was no hope he wouldn't. I had promised Brian, though, at least in my mind, and that was the only thing that kept me going with all this madness.I grabbed hold of the knife with one hand and just yanked it out. Just because I wasn't letting him die didn't mean I was taking any special pains to make him comfortable.

He jerked awake, narrowing his eyes at me and snarling, then laid his head down again, twisting his neck I guess so he could breathe better, still heaving but now also watching me warily with those blank, hateful eyes. I glared hard at him back, and went to loosen the collar.

He got pissed again then, with me so close to his head, I guess, and started growling, thrashing about. Trying to undo the buckle with one hand and hold him down with the other wasn't working, so I reached out and gave a sharp smack across his ass. He squealed, startled, and immediately bit me in return, sinking teeth into my arm. Didn't matter, it kept him still at least. I got the collar off, shoved him off, and took off, yelling at him as I went.

"You goddamn ungrateful bitch!"

I threw the collar at him for good measure before slamming the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


End file.
